Lame and exploitative.

It's an unpleasant sit.

---

I think that's a great phrase: "an unpleasant sit." There were a number of reviews of Frenzy in 1972 that called it "a highly entertaining film" -- but I always felt that "entertaining" didn't fit a movie that was so graphic in its central rape-murder scene and so disturbing in the long sequence of the rough treatment of the corpse of the nicest character in the film. I, too, found it an unpleasant sit. But I came out liking it -- and liking the good reviews that it got.

I guess there was "entertainment" in the suspense of the film, the style of the film(that necktie), the unique Covent Garden setting of the film, and the comedy of the film (the Oxford dinners.)

I'm not here to refute your dislike of the film -- its more like I"ve come here to say "I found it an unpleasant sit, too" and yet, as a Hitchcock fan at the time, the movie seemed "bigger than the movie itself" -- it got all these rave reviews, and landed on many Ten Best lists...after years of decline, Hitchcock was The Comeback King.

I think you also hit on some of my enjoyment of the film in referencing "the villain" as a possible saving grace? Bob Rusk is one of the greatest villains in Hitchcock, IMHO. Such a suave, funny, cheery, charming guy -- when he is not raping and strangling women in an impotent rage. As Hitchcock put it, "killers have to be charming, otherwise their victims would never come near them."

And this: There were a LOT of unpleasant sits in the sexual, brutal R-rated world of 1971-72: Get Carter, Straw Dogs, A Clockwork Orange, Deliverance. Hitchcock was just staying current.